By Kevin Mitchell/Las Vegas / The Guardian


Floyd Mayweather has sent a private, handwritten note to members of his staff, the intensely loyal people who service his every whim around the clock, the tone of which suggests the unbeaten champion has come to terms with saying goodbye to boxing at 38. The farewell is scheduled for September, but Mayweather’s latest gesture will inspire speculation that he could make a call immediately after he fights Manny Pacquiao here on tonight (tomorrow morning in Doha), depending on the result and the performance in their unification world welterweight title bout.
“I cannot be your saviour forever, everything has to end some time,” he informed the disciples who adore him like a Messiah, from the man whose job during sparring is to insert chewing gum in his employer’s mouth when he rests, to the guy who washes his 38 luxury cars.
It sounded as if he were already assembling P45s for members of the ever-referenced Money Team, who will accompany him on 3am visits to a local hamburger chain or prepare his Bugatti for a midnight spin. Certainly the short note added substance to his earlier declaration: “I’m close to the big four-oh. I’m very, very close.”
This edging towards the exit, even before a blow has been thrown in the Fight of the Century, should concentrate minds in the fight game, because we will soon have to do without the single most influential figure in boxing. Mayweather, also, will have to deal with that void in his life, not to mention the comforting presence of his entourage. He has retired before but could not resist the addiction of the ring and has reinvented himself over the past eight years to the point where regarding himself as The Best Ever does not seem in anyway sacrilegious.
If he beats Pacquiao handily, or knocks him out without exertion, he might try to convince his Showtime bosses that his 49th contest should be a valedictory occasion, with Mayweather allowed to hand-pick an opponent. In all likelihood, they would not be thrilled with that, and it is strongly suspected it was Showtime who insisted he take this fight now, after years of prevarication.
Their ideal scenario is a close fight or a Pacquiao win, making a rematch the most logical and lucrative option. If Mayweather were to lose, however, he could be tempted to walk away, as a lot of great fighters have done in the past, beaten at the end but fondly remembered. There are some illustrious names on the list, from Jack Dempsey to Muhammad Ali at heavyweight, from Sugar Ray Robinson to Sugar Ray Leonard, who lit up so many nights at welterweight, the sport’s glamour division. It is as tough to quit at the top as it is at the bottom, and the distance between can be short if a fighter ignores the signs of decline, some times infinitesimal.
Among the couple of sensible things the American’s father and trainer, Floyd Sr, said on the matter this week was this: “I think it’s best for Floyd to choose what he wants to do at the end of the year. I think he should retire, because if he sticks around somebody is going to get [him] sooner or later.”
Mayweather has been unusually subdued, which has surprised a lot boxing writers used to chronicling his pre-fight excesses. “I look at life totally different,” he said. “I don’t have to come here and bash Manny Pacquiao. I don’t have to come here and bash Freddie Roach. It’s about that time for me to walk away.”
For days, Mayweather has hinted that retirement is imminent. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, even voiced the facetious doubt that their opponent would even bother to turn up. “He’ll show up,” he said, “but will he run? That’s my main concern.”
Was all of this a teaser for fans to buy the fight on pay-per-view at up to $100 a hit to witness the passing of an era? Possibly. But insiders say this Mayweather camp differs from recent preparations, still intense but quieter, more focused, less crazy. Amir Khan said he looked “different”. It is as if that, after ruling his sport for many of the past 18 years, he cannot afford to slip up at the end of his run. Certainly, this is his most dangerous assignment, even though he is a 2-1 on favourite.
Roach said: “We’ve got to make him pay, jump in and out, make him miss. If he wants to trade with Manny Pacquiao, that’s a huge mistake. He’s been hitting me hard with the protector on my chest in training, he even knocked me down one day.
“We know how to catch him, cut the ring off, especially from Manny’s southpaw stance. Believe me, Manny Pacquiao does not get tired. Mayweather can only run so far. I think he would have moved a lot more if they had fought earlier. We’ve had a gameplan for a long time, but we’ve made a couple of switches.”
As for Pacquiao’s view of Mayweather, it has been consistent and respectful, and he too is eerily serene. “My feeling is excitement for Saturday. Nervous? No. I never suffer from that. I have just been in my room, spend time with my kids. I don’t want to say bad things about him. He’s a new Floyd Mayweather, a nice guy.”
This is that unique animal, then: a big fight – financially the biggest of all time – without the edge and animosity many observers had anticipated and, in some cases, craved. The essential ingredient of an event of this magnitude is excitement, and, in the absence of volume in the lead-up, it is now up to the fighters to provide it on the night. And, depending on who he is talking to, Mayweather has set up smokescreens to create further mystery ahead of what could be either a memorable confrontation or a disappointing sprint to the final bell.
His father agrees with Roach that Mayweather will try to end it quickly. The fighter himself is giving nothing away, at which he is expert. He rarely answers questions directly but, depending on who he talks to, he sometimes lets candour drown out strategy. In regular conversations with Stephen A Smith of ESPN in their Behind The Scenes series, he has sounded his old, aggressive self – at odds with the laid-back persona cultivated all week at press conferences.
His take on his legacy, for instance, is uncompromising. “Nobody’s gonna brainwash me that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali are better than me, no way,” he said in Thursday’s edition, in which he relaxed at his home, 12 miles south of the city. “But I will pay respect to them because they paved the way for me to be where I’m at.”
It does not seem to occur to Mayweather (or Smith, for that matter) that, in paying respect to two acknowledged legends only in the context of what they have done to help his own status, it is really no respect at all. But the narcissism in Mayweather that Sugar Ray Leonard identified earlier in the week looks to have him in its grip. It is what lifts him above his contemporaries – a fighter with not a scintilla of doubt about his ability, or so it seems.
He says he cares nothing for anyone else in boxing, even those who say his control freakery is bad for the sport. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” he told Smith. “Floyd Mayweather lives for Floyd Mayweather, whatever no one says. Business mind: if you pay to see me lose or you pay to see me win, you’re payin’ – and I’m collectin’. I believe in self-preservation. Me first. Me first. Then everyone else. But me first. My mentality has always been the same: line ’em, and I’ll knock ’em down like bowlin’ pins.”
Except he hasn’t done that since the night he landed a sneaky long right on the inattentive Victor Ortiz, and that was four years and six fights ago. Pacquiao, meanwhile, hasn’t stopped anyone since he battered Miguel Cotto into submission in 2009, six months after he so dramatically put Ricky Hatton to sleep.
That Pacquiao would give Mayweather nightmares but, in his most recent appearance, he decked Chris Algieri six times and could not put him away. Has he lost his vicious streak? He was at pains to deny it this week, but some are not so sure. The general view is that Mayweather has delayed this match-up precisely because he has detected that incremental slide in his opponent, most spectacularly witnessed when Juan Manuel M?rquez did to Pacquaio in December 2012 what he had done to Hatton. The difference between those two chilling defeats is that Pacquiao does not seem to have been traumatised by it, whereas it signalled a sad and irreversible decline for the Mancunian.
As for the wait of nearly six years to make this fight, Mayweather has apparently forgotten that he only wanted to do this for the fans. “It’s about timing. I’m still a businessman.” And that is the truth,” he said.
When asked if the fight was about the estimated $200m he will earn rather than “shutting up Manny Pacquiao and Bob Arum once and for all”, he answered with blunt certainty. “I don’t care less what they say. I don’t think this way. Let’s go to his bank account and my bank account. Let’s see if he’s secure for the rest of his life. End of the day, I’m gonna say, Floyd Mayweather, he go where he want to drive, go where he want to go around the world, and he take care of his family, because he was smart.”
But trailing Mayweather through the labyrinth of his rapid-fire responses can be a fruitless journey. He says, for instance, that he is “not aware” that he had recently said Pacquaio was not just another opponent. He confirms “he’s just not any other fighter” yet adds “my mentality for all 47 guys, I look at them as just an opponent, because if I start lookin’ at them as something different, if I start putting a name on it, then I’m putting pressure on myself. I’ve been victorious because I look at every fighter as just an opponent. So I have to continue to think like this.”
This is a chronic case of cognitive dissonance, the result of holding two or more opposing views at the same time. Psychologists say that people who suffer from it strive to avoid situations in which their contradictory views will be manifest. This could be why Mayweather often does not answer the question he is asked, preferring to issue a wholly unrelated reply he has parked in another corner of his brain for just such a moment. It is the mental equivalent of his shoulder roll, rendering him untouchable.
And, of course, it makes him even more interesting. If he is not certain what he thinks himself, how can anybody else unravel his real motives and decisions?
What we do know is that Pacquiao will be doing his best to solve the riddle here on tonight.